The Many Saints Of Newark CinemaCon footage teases Tony and Dickie's relationship. The Sopranos kicked off the era of prestige TV when it ran on HBO from 1999 to 2007. Famously, the final episode ended on an ambiguous note when a rare scene of Soprano family happiness was interrupted by a jarring cut to black.
It’s been almost fifteen years since that memorably frustrating series finale and the show’s creator David Chase is still not ready to give any definitive answers about what it was supposed to mean. Chase is however ready to return to the world of The Sopranos, as he unleashes the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark. The movie focuses on the young Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini’s son Michael, as well as younger versions of Silvio, Uncle Junior, Paulie Walnuts and more fan favorite characters. Vera Farmiga is also onboard as Tony’s domineering mother Livia, along with Jon Bernthal as his father Johnny Boy. The movie will also explore Tony’s relationship with Dickie Moltisanti, the father of Tony’s “nephew” Christopher – whom Tony famously killed with his own hands after becoming fed up with his drug use.
Many Saints of Newark trailers previously afforded glimpses of the younger versions of all these memorable Sopranos characters, but attendees at the recent CinemaCon trade show in Las Vegas got a more substantial taste of the prequel film, including a surprising cameo via narration. The scene offered up at the Warner Bros. presentation opens at a funeral, where various characters speak in voice over as their headstones are shown. It then cuts to a ship’s dock where Tony and Dickie are walking toward a ship and messing around. Narration says, "The little fat kid is my uncle, Tony Soprano. Well, we call him my uncle, by marriage. He choked me to death." Ray Liotta’s character Hollywood Dick Moltisanti, Dickie’s father and Christopher’s grandfather, then exits the ship with a woman and meets up with Tony and Dickie.
The narrator of the scene is of course none other than Christopher Moltisanti himself – Tony was his “uncle by marriage” and Tony did in fact choke him to death in the final season of The Sopranos. Having Christopher serve as the narrator from beyond the grave indeed adds a grim cast to the proceedings, given that he’s talking about the child version of the person who will eventually end his life. It remains to be seen if Christopher’s narration continues throughout the movie or is simply used in this one scene.
Clearly the Moltisanti family is central to the story in The Many Saints of Newark, as Dickie’s father Hollywood Dick is introduced alongside Dickie (and Moltisanti literally means “many saints,” which is a clue in itself). Nothing is known about Liotta’s Hollywood Dick as the character was never mentioned in the original show, but it’s safe to assume he’s a gangster as well. In addition to fleshing out this new Moltisanti character, The Many Saints of Newark will also seemingly provide some insight into the future relationship between Tony and Christopher, which was complicated to say the least.
